Windows 7 Users Do Yourself A Big Favor – System Image

A few weeks ago, one of my most disliked individuals, Mr. Murphy, paid a visit to one of my most liked fellow bloggers, Paul Dahl, and the result was Paul being left with his laptop’s glass display cracked and shattered. Mr. Murphy wasn’t finished with Mr. Dahl though by any means as when Paul took his laptop in for repair they somehow managed to destroy his HD. The saga continues as the Carbonite backup system is not performing exactly as advertised. Here’s Paul’s description!

It seemed like an opportune time for me to remind all Windows 7 users of an extremely useful “lifeline” utility buried deep inside Control Panel that could save users all kinds of money and even more importantly, grief.

Do you happen to have an external HD just sitting by your computer, or even worse, in a box under your desk? If you do, then this “lifeline” utility in Windows 7 is called Create A System Image and it will restore your computer, including files, programs and device drivers after a catastrophic Hard Drive crash. If you do use Windows 7 and don’t have an external HD you may want to consider spending $100 to get one. I first posted about Create a System Image back in June, 2012. Here’s a refresher:

Image 1. Go to Control Panel and click on Backup your computer

With a complete system image of your computer on your external drive all you have to do is replace the damaged HD then copy the system image to the new drive and your computer is totally restored and fully operational – bada, bada, bing! Keep in mind that unlike most backups and even Factory Reinstall this utility recreates all of your OS, programs, drivers and utilities exactly as they were at the time you created the System Image. Regular system images are a good idea!

Image 2. Click on Create a system image in left window pane

Here are the steps required to Create a System Image of your HD:

1. Click on Control Panel > Back up your computer (Image 1.)
2. Click on Create a system image in left window pane (Image 2)
3. Specify location to save image file and click ‘Next’ (Image 3)
4. Windows will proceed to create your system image file

Image 3. Specify location to save image file and click ‘Next’

Image 4.  Windows will proceed to create your system image file (Image 4)

As part of the process of creating e a System Image file, you’ll also be asked to create a bootable System Repair DVD.  It is this DVD that you’ll boot from to restore the System Image to your new HD. I’ll detail that process in a separate post that I’ll put on my sidebar in the next day or so under Rick’s Tips & Techniques. I can’t think of a single reason why anyone running Windows 7 and having an external HD would not want to run this utility at least once a month!

Thanks for visiting!